Keep It Clean - Stucky

Thorsten Stuckmann is looking to build on Saturday’s clean sheet against Fleetwood Town when Rovers host Port Vale on Tuesday evening.

Thirty-four year old Stuckmann has played in every game this season and kept 10 shutouts in the process but will want a quiet night when the Valiants visit Keepmoat Stadium.

“It was one of our worst performances as a team in the whole season and we have to prove a point,” the German said of a 3-0 reverse at Vale Park earlier on in the season.

“Personally, for me it was the best half of football of my whole career!

“Obviously we need to win this game; we know what they're good at, what we’re good at and what we need to do – three points!

“It was one of the better performances in my career – especially first half – and I was quite happy with it but if you lose 3-0 you can’t smile when you come back just because you saved a penalty and a few other balls.”

Promoted with Preston North End last term, such bittersweet afternoons have become increasingly rare for Stuckmann who played down talk of the play offs in favour of a shorter term view.

“We think from game to game at the moment and we’ve done really well over the last few weeks when we’ve done that,” he said.

“Before the gaffer came in, we were more talking about getting relegated and I don’t think that we should talk about the play-offs now, we should think about it game after game and we’ll see how we go after that.

“As a goalkeeper, my aim is to keep a clean sheet but I’d rather win 3-1 and get three points than keep a clean sheet.

“A clean sheet is a great bonus for me, its one of the reasons I get paid but I think defensively we’ve improved a lot. Attacking-wise we’ve also improved a lot but we still haven’t had as many clean sheets as I would have liked and we need to keep working hard.”